The physical, emotional and mental well-being of an individual can contribute greatly to the quality of life of that individual. In our hyperactive, hyperkinetic world, stress results in numerous physical reactions, such as, headache, muscle tension, dizziness or sleeplessness, weight gain, chronic coughing, nervous ticks, stomach upset and shortness of breath. Job stress alone is estimated to cost American business $300,000,000,000 annually. Stress is the response of the body and/or mind to a demand placed upon it. Stress can be caused by major events in one's life, such as, death of a loved one, marital breakup, personal injury or sickness, and job loss. Stress can also result from our day-to-day hectic style of living, where one attempts to excel simultaneously at being a super employee, a super parent, a super spouse, and a super citizen. Unless chronic stress is controlled, one puts oneself at risk for a host of serious problems, such as, heart disease, stroke, migraines, muscle and nerve disorders.
The typical path to obtain relief from stress is to visit one's doctor. Stress conditions result in up to 70% of all doctor's visits. Typically, drugs are prescribed to relieve stress. One stress reducing medication alone accounts for $6,000,000 per day in sales. Thus, alternative approaches to traditional medicine have become increasingly popular. Resort to Eastern religions, transcendental meditation, and biofeedback techniques have been proposed to empower the individual to reduce stress without the potential deleterious effects of powerful and expensive prescription drugs or invasive surgery.
It has been proposed to use images for the purpose of optimizing one's physiological and psychological state. There are several reasons for this.
(1) It has been shown that one can measure a reliable physiological response for images that differ in valence and arousal. It has been demonstrated that images rated differently with respect to perceived activation and pleasantness elicited physiological responses of different magnitude. Thus, magnitude of the skin conductance response correlated with perceived arousal level produced by pictorial stimuli. At the same time heart rate acceleration during first 4 to 5 seconds of image presentation reflected "valence" or degree of perceived pleasantness of an image. Other physiological parameters that reflect an individual's physiological reactions to images have also been demonstrated. These results imply that, for an individual viewer, images can potentially be classified based on one's physiological reactions in terms of emotional arousal.
(2) Imagery is known to be able to change a person's state. Paintings, movies, pictures are constantly affecting our mood and performance level. Power of visualization and affective content determine effective use of imagery in therapeutic sessions. Experimental research has also shown that presentation of images of similar content may cause significant shifts in physiological reactions.
(3) Digital imaging technology provides an almost instant access to image databases through the internet. Moreover, the potentially unlimited degree of digital manipulation makes images very attractive means of interaction and communication. Images can be easily transformed to alter or enhance people's preferences, i. e., for hue, saturation, depth, aesthetic feelings, etc. Image transformation by itself can provide biofeedback information to the user to facilitate learning how to control one's physiological and emotional state, e. g., stress.
Following are several proposals to use images as a means of changing one's state that have not proven to be entirely successful.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,729, issued Nov. 14, 1995, inventors Bittman et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,871, issued Sep.6, 1994, inventors Bittman et al., disclose the use of measurements of electrophysiological quantities to control a presentation to a subject of a series of prestored audio-visual sequences.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,998, issued Dec. 24, 1974, inventor Hidalgo-Briceno discloses an entertainment device that includes sensing means connected to the user for sensing galvanic skin response and brain theta waves. According to a given measured state of a user the device provides a given type of predetermined audio-visual stimulation to the user for a timed interval to hold one in or move one toward a desired state. At the end of the interval, the user's state is again measured and a further timed audio-visual response according to the measured state is presented to the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,994, issued Jan. 28, 1997, inventor Bro, discloses an automated and interactive positive motivation system that allows a health care professional to produce and send a series of motivational messages to a client to change or reinforce a specific behavioral pattern.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,304,112, issued Apr. 19, 1994, inventors Mrklas et al., discloses an integrated stress reduction system which detects the stress level of a subject and displays a light pattern reflecting the relationship between the subject's stress level and a target level. The system also provides relaxing visual, audio, tactile, environmental, and other effects to aid the subject in reducing one's stress level to the target level.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,126, issued Dec. 30, 1986, inventor Aguilar, discloses a biofeedback technique which permits simultaneous, preferably redundant, visual and auditory presentation on a color TV of any intrinsically motivating stimuli together with continuous information pertaining to the physiological parameter to be controlled. As the subject changes a certain physiological parameter, the image and sound become clearer if the change occurs in the desired direction.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,253,168, issued Oct. 12, 1993, inventor Berg, discloses a system for allowing an individual to express one's self in a creative manner by using biofeedback signals to direct imaging and audio devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,676,138, issued Oct. 14, 1997, inventor Zawalinski, discloses a multimedia computerized system for detecting emotional responses of human beings and changes thereof over time.
U.S. Patent 5,047,930, issued Sep. 10, 1991, inventors Marten, et al., discloses methods of analyzing physiological signals from a subject and analyzing them using pattern recognition techniques to determine a particular sleep state of the subject. Use of any associated feedbacks is not disclosed.
The following papers discuss various emotional responses and physiological responses of subjects to viewing images.
Affective judgement and psychophysiological response: dimensional covariation in the evaluation of pictorial stimuli; by: Greenwald, Cook and Lang; Journal of Pyschophysiology 3 (1989), pages 51-64.
Remembering Pictures: Pleasure and Arousal in Memory, by: Bradley, Greenwald, Petry and Lang; Journal of Experimental Psychology, Learning Memory and Cognition; 1992, Vol. 18, No. 2, pages 379-390.
Looking at Pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions; by: Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, and Hamm, Psychophysiology, 30 (1993), pages 261-273.
Picture media and emotion: Effects of a sustained affective context; by: Bradley, Cuthbert, and Lang, Psychophysiology, 33 (1996), pages 662-670.
Emotional arousal and activation of the visual cortex: An fMRI analysis; by: Lang, Bradley, Fitzsimmons, Cuthbert, Scott, Bradley, Moulder, and Nangia; Psychophysiology, 25 (1998), pages 199-210.
The techniques disclosed in the above references have the following disadvantages.
1. There is no development of a personal image profile of an individual so as to provide for customized images which are specifically tailored for the individual so as to move the individual to a desired physiological and/or psychological state. This is important since an image which is restful for some may be stressful for others.
2. The images or other stimuli for inducing change in state in an individual are preselected by someone other than the user. The selection is often based on the effect of the images on a large number of subjects rather than being personalized for the individual.
3. Where measurement of physiological parameters are used as part of the state change technique, the measurement devices are often large and not very portable and therefore not conducive for use at work, at home or during travel.